After The Fall
by Laurie1
Summary: "It is, after all, just another day." A pre-Season 1 story. Will, from when he hears of Peter's scandal until Alicia's first day at work.
1. Chapter 1

After The Fall

Summary: "It is, after all, just another day." A pre-Season 1 story. Will, from when he hears of Peter's scandal until Alicia's first day at work.

Author's Note: Not to be confused with the Season 3 episode of the same name. This story is 13 or 14 chapters long and nearly finished; I will post a couple times a week. Also, I have no legal expertise, so please excuse any awkward turns of expression in that regard.

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1.

The day has gone by in a flurry of meetings and briefs and so it's evening and he still hasn't heard.

"Crazy about Florrick, isn't it?" says Diane, falling into step with him as he leaves his office.

"Uh, yeah." Will distractedly stuffs papers into his case. He hates the way his eyebrows sometimes still twitch at that name. It's like he's still bracing to assume an expression of fake enthusiasm.

"_Florrick. Alicia Florrick. Alicia Florrick, J.D. I think it sounds like a lawyer's name, don't you?" She smiled at him. He faux-smiled back. "I can see what you're thinking, you know." He doubted it. "And I _did _say all those things, about female identity, and I meant them, but, - I don't know, don't you think the premise is wrong? I mean, Cavanaugh isn't _my _name, it's my _father's _name. Why should my father - who I didn't choose - have more ownership over my nomenclature than the man I _am _choosing?"_

Will blinks; the memory disappears. "Those IT guys have been in my office since dawn," he says. "In fact I think they stayed the night. We have got to stop buying tech products from clients who are being sued."

"They took over my computer last week," Diane responds. "To be honest I think it's some sort of power grab."

Her eyes narrow at him, bemused at his non-reaction, so Will returns to the initial thread with some reluctance. "So he is running, then?" he asks, vaguely wondering if Peter will do one of those angelic smiling family ads, with the matching outfits. Somehow he doesn't think she'd allow it.

"Running?" Diane's look is blank. "What are you...?"

"Our esteemed State's Attorney. For Congress. Isn't that - Jim Hughitt mentioned something a few weeks ago. That's not what you're talking about?"

Now her look is incredulous. "Good Lord. No. No. I can't imagine...although I suppose there's a select group of Congressmen with whom he'd fit in quite well now. You know, I think that's when women will know that we've arrived in politics - when we have our first major sex scandal."

"Sex scandal?" Will's feet come to a sudden halt. "Wait, I...what? You don't mean - not Peter Florrick..."

"Yes I do mean," Diane says. "Has IT requisitioned all your communications devices? The _Trib_ broke the story, but now it's on CNN, MSNBC - Hannity's having a ball, the conservatives are all going gaga because the last few have been Republicans. They're pulling out all the Clinton and Edwards footage. The local newscasters are competing to see how many times they can squeeze the word 'prostitute' into their broadcasts."

"No." He sits down on someone's desk. "I can't believe... How could he..."

"I know. Everyone's shocked. Peter Florrick's a smooth operator, sure, but no one thought he was quite that stupid."

Will still can't get his mind around it. "So it's real? It has legs? It's not just someone trying to take him down, earn a quick buck, sling some mud, have their 15 minutes?"

Diane shrugs. "Of course someone's trying to take him down. This is Chicago. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have legs. Apparently there are tapes."

"Wow."

"Yeah. There'll be charges. Misuse of the office, bribes, sex for favors, the usual thing. I'm guessing jail time."

"Is he gonna...?"

"Resign? I've heard there's going to be a press conference tomorrow. I would think so."

"So the State's Attorney's office in chaos." Will thinks for a moment. "What cases do we have on the docket? Because we should really push the angle that.."

"Our opposing counsel is corrupt and can't be trusted? No kidding."

"Who's the heir apparent over there? Childs?"

"I'm guessing it'll be Childs. He's already all over it - giving interviews." Diane nods toward the elevators. "Are you heading down?"

Will considers. "Nah, I think I'll stay and catch up on my current events." He pushes open the doors to the conference room. "See you tomorrow."

Thoughts swirl in his head as he turns on the TV and turns up the volume. Peter's portrait smarms at him from the screen, followed by a shot of his back walking rapidly away from the camera. Will recognizes Daniel Golden behind him, muttering a terse "No comment" before holding a hand up and following. Golden is a down-and-dirty Chicago-style lawyer, with an impressive reputation and a client listed studded with politicos. _Pulling out the big guns._

He switches the channel to the local news. Glen Childs appears, standing ramrod straight and oozing self-righteousness. Childs has always seemed to Will like someone with a list of personal grievances dating back to grade school recess who can't wait to dole out retribution. Well, he'll have the chance now.

He clicks again. The Blackhawks are winning. He's never been much of a hockey fan and he's steering himself religiously clear now to avoid the bandwagon. Will despises bandwagons. Click. Click. Click.

Someone at WGN has dug up a clip from Peter Florrick's stump speech a few years ago. Naturally the importance of family and rooting out corruption are two of the themes. The juxtaposition isn't quite _Daily Show_-level irony, but it gets the point across. The anchors segue with a promise of "New footage when we come back" to the weather report. More rain.

Although Will's early years at the firm overlapped with Peter's stint as an ASA, before his election, he can only think of a few relatively unmemorable occasions when they went up against each other in court. Usually it was Jonas Stern taking him on, presenting juries with a David vs. Goliath-type visual. Personally Will has never been intimidated by Peter's physique; he was a pitcher, he'd learned to stare down boys a foot taller at the age of eleven.

The news returns with some human interest piece about an alpaca farm near the Wisconsin border. Will is just about to switch the TV off when they get back to the story of the hour. The "new footage" is of Alicia; Will stares unblinkingly at the screen as she hustles her kids into the car from the circle drive at their North Shore private school. The death glare Alicia shoots the reporter is enough to send ice down anyone's veins.

It's this that Will doesn't understand about the whole thing. He doesn't like Peter, has never liked him, hated him at first sight, in fact; of course, he was hardly a disinterested party. But even the non-impartial Will of 15 years ago had to acknowledge that Peter seemed to be genuinely in love with Alicia.

So how could he do it? They're interviewing some schmuck off the street on the news, a "Cook County voter," who's spouting some nonsense about Florrick "breaking the public trust." But Will doesn't give a shit about that. How could he do it _to Alicia_? Alicia who thought he was everything. Alicia who gave up her career so he could have everything, the kids and the house and the office. And the wife.

That fucking asshole.

Will shuts off the TV and glances at his watch. He's meeting someone for drinks at 10, Marie, who he's been sort of seeing on and off for the past few weeks. He thinks about canceling but decides against it. It is, after all, just another day.

But when she sidles up to him hopefully as they leave the bar, clearly wanting to be asked back to his place, Will packs her off in a cab and walks home in the rain.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

The next day the Florrick scandal is all anyone at the office can talk about. An associate whose time at the state's attorney's office a few years back coincided with Peter's election has a crowd around his desk. Kalinda used to work there too, but no one expects her to be particularly forthcoming.

Will bangs a stapler against the wall to attract attention. "All right, people, back to work. We've had our little water cooler chit-chat. You all know that there's a cloud hanging over the SA's office. Well, that means the sun is shining here at Stern Lockhart Gardner. So," he dismisses them with a wave, "go make some hay."

At this everyone makes a show of dispersing and returning to their desks, though Will's pretty sure most of them have just gone to follow updates to the story online.

"'Go make some hay'?" Diane asks. "Have we been reading _Little House on the Prairie _this week?"

Will shrugs. "Hey, I thought it was a pretty impressive metaphor, off the cuff. You saw what I did with the cloud, and then the sun and the-"

"I did." Diane smiles. "Don't lie, though. You spent all morning thinking that one up."

No. He spent the morning pinning the front page of the _Tribune _up on his wall and firing a Nerf ball at Peter Florrick's lying, cheating bastard face.

"You caught me."

"We've got Jorgensen in ten."

"Yeah."

Around lunchtime Diane motions him into her office. Kalinda's there too, leaning against the doorframe. "The resignation's coming this afternoon," Diane says. "Kalinda's got it from someone in the SA's office. The press conference is at 3:30."

"It's gonna be Childs?" Will looks to Kalinda, who nods.

"So what do we know about him?" Diane asks.

"He hates Peter Florrick," replies Kalinda.

Will snorts. "No shit."

"No, I mean he really hates him," Kalinda says. "It's not just opportunism."

"I see," says Diane. "So if I were to posit that Saint Glen is involved in the takedown..."

"You'd be right."

"You're saying that we could exploit it," Will ventures. "That Childs is going to be so locked in on the Florrick thing that he might overlook things elsewhere."

"Maybe."

"He's going to have to define himself against the Florrick tenure," Diane muses. "Transparent. Squeaky clean. Above the law. There'll be some weakness there, too."

"Thanks, Kalinda," Diane says, and she heads out. Will has always marveled at Diane's ability to effortlessly kick people out of her office.

"Kalinda's been here what, eight or nine months?" Diane asks him. He nods. "That was a good hire, Will, really. I mean, I haven't got the faintest clue what's going on in her head, but she's sharp."

"She's right about Childs, too," he says. "It's personal with him and Peter Florrick."

"How do you know?"

"I don't. But Peter Florrick got the nod to run three years ago, not Glen Childs. Florrick got something that Childs wanted, something he thought should have been his."

"Right. And how could that not be personal?"

All of a sudden Will hates this conversation, hates himself. Is he really making some sort of parallel with that jackass Glen Childs? _Something he thought should have been his? _What the fuck is wrong with him?

"I've got a lunch," he says abruptly, getting up and walking toward the door.

"You'll be back for the press conference? Must-see TV..."

"I wouldn't miss it."

He has nowhere to go for his made-up lunch, so instead he buys a hot dog from a street vendor and walks several blocks before stopping to sit down on a wall bounding a neighborhood park. The rain has let up for a few hours, so there are some kids from the adjacent school playing baseball on a diamond patched variously with grass, weeds, gravelly sand and puddles.

Will can tell in less than five minutes that there's only one kid out there whose baseball talents amount to anything. He's skinny, with arms and legs awkwardly jutting in all directions, but his throwing motion is fluid and he holds the bat like it's an extension of his hand.

At Georgetown Will and a bunch of other law students used to get a game together Fridays after the afternoon seminar. It started out pretty casually but by the end of his time there it'd become something of an institution. Mostly it was guys who'd played baseball in high school, some intramurals in college. There were a couple girls, too, a softball player from UVa and another whose dad was a scout for the Atlanta Braves. He and an S.J.D. who'd caught for Florida State were generally the captains.

Most of the time Will had held back a bit, played loose and easy, tried to make it fun for everyone (while still pushing his team to win, of course. Why play otherwise?) There'd been occasions, though, when he didn't. Hold back, that is. Like if someone had pissed him off in class that week he might embarrass him with a change-up, or belt a line drive back at his face. Other times the game's seductive rhythms would lull him into a zone, and he'd forget where he was, when he was, everything, only realizing he'd struck out the side when the other team started shooting him dirty looks.

And then there'd been the times when he'd catch a glimpse of Alicia in the bleachers. Invariably there'd be a textbook propped between her legs, but more often than not her eyes were on _him_. And he'd try to impress her like it was high school, by bending in a tricky curveball or bare-handing a grounder or cracking one toward the fences.

If his life had been a movie one of the kids would've fouled off a ball toward him and he'd have caught it barehanded, hot dog be damned, and fired back a perfect one-hopper or something like that. But it's not, it's just his life, so Will just finishes his hot dog and heads back, pausing to shoot his wrapper into a nearby trash can like a basketball.

That's his sport now. He doesn't play baseball much anymore - it's too painful, and not just in the shoulder that wiped out his career (which, incidentally, is starting to do something weird on days before it rains in a way that makes him feel both ancient and like he ought to be writing the Farmer's Almanac). Whenever he plays baseball it's against the ghost of the player he used to be and he doesn't like the comparison. In basketball it doesn't matter - even when his high school talents were at their peak (one game he'd hit seven three-pointers) he'd still been slow and barely over six feet. So Will can enjoy the weekly games with the other lawyers and sometimes a few judges and politicos without feeling like he's lost something precious.

It starts raining again on his way back and Will didn't bring an umbrella so he grabs a cab. They're shooting some movie in the Loop and of course there's construction on Wacker so the cabbie drives a roundabout route through Chicago's one-way streets that takes him near the State's Attorney's office building. He can see news trucks already parked outside.

Peter used to come to those basketball games sometimes. He'd usually leave early with some quip about the wife or the family and Will would grit his teeth and turn around and brick a three-pointer.

By some twist of fate the basketball universe was a co-conspirator in their unspoken agreement to have as little to do with each other as possible, and so generally when they both played he and Peter would end up on alternate teams or something. They never guarded each other, which wasn't particularly unusual given that Will was mostly an outside shooter and Peter was...tall. He wasn't actually that great a player but he got a lot of rebounds and occasionally would break out this hook shot that inspired some lawyer suck-up to call him "Baby Kareem."

But Peter hasn't played lately - not for months. Clearly there've been enough...other things...going on in his life to keep him busy.

Will grits his teeth.

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A/N: Thanks for reviewing!


	3. Chapter 3

3.

He's got afternoon meetings so fortunately he misses most of the pre-coverage. When he heads in there's already a crowd gathered in the conference room, speculation buzzing. Will fiddles with his phone. There's a news alert in his inbox enumerating the charges pending against Peter. A similar graphic appears on the TV screen.

Kalinda comes in and hands him some papers. Something about her seems a bit askew. Finally he pins it down. "You know you're wearing two different boots?" he asks. Both are black, naturally, but one has a big buckle, and the other doesn't.

"Very observant," she responds. "Maybe you should take my job." No further explanation is offered, but she drifts to the back of the room, waiting like the rest of them to watch Peter Florrick under fire.

Presently someone turns up the volume. Flash bulbs brighten the screen and the camera pans to Peter striding purposefully toward the podium. He is hand in hand with Alicia.

For some reason when Will had envisioned the press conference he'd pictured Peter alone. But of course Alicia is there with him. He's a politician. Without this show of wifely support his career will be impossible to resurrect.

Peter begins to read from a prepared statement but Will hears nothing but the silence of the woman next to him. Alicia's wearing a gray and black checkered jacket; her hair is pulled back. She looks composed - almost too composed. The fire she'd shown in the news clip at her kids' school yesterday is completely gone. Her eyes are expressionless, lightless. Will doesn't think he's ever seen her look like that. Peter had made her happy, before. Which was why, back then, he'd forced himself to back off...

Will hadn't gone to their wedding. It'd been in late August, the summer after they graduated from law school. He'd been invited, of course, but he hadn't gone. His excuse made sense - the wedding was in Chicago and he'd only just started at Osterman Lee Canfield and had to rack up billable hours. Really, though, he could have made it.

He had however gone to a gallery in Georgetown and bought a painting Alicia occasionally admired when they used to walk by on their way to the bars, and had it framed to send as a wedding gift. But then he'd thought about the two of them looking up at it together from their couch in their living room and so he'd returned it and bought something else almost indiscriminately from the Marshall Field's gift registry. What had it been, again? Something expensive and relatively useless. Silver plate? Candlesticks? He couldn't remember. Whatever it was, it was probably sitting on the topmost, unreachable shelf in the cupboard or under a dust cloth in the attic. Maybe it'd been sold at a garage sale. But people on the North Shore didn't have garage sales, they kept everything in their expansive closets and then their kids donated it to charities or had estate sales when they died.

A roar from the on-screen press corps startles him from the reverie. Peter grabs Alicia's hand again and rushes out toward the door. Alicia looks faintly stunned. Will realizes that he missed the entire thing.

The room around him starts to buzz.

"Well that didn't sound like someone who's going to take this sitting down," Diane says, from behind him. "'Scurrilous charges'? 'Time to heal'? 'Pray that one day I may serve you again'? That's comeback language right there."

"No doubt," Will replies vaguely, thinking that he probably should have paid more attention if he wants to be able to maintain any sort of conversation with anyone here for the rest of the day. He's less than sure, though, if he actually does want to.

Diane looks at him. "More distractions for the SA's office. Good for us, I guess."

"Yeah."

She frowns, clearly thrown by his lack of engagement in the discussion. "Oh, don't tell me," she says suddenly. Her expression forms into one he knows well.

Outraged Feminist.

"What?" He's not quite sure what's brought it on this time, which is unusual, because he's had lots of practice in predicting (and eliciting) its appearance.

"You don't think he deserves it, do you? All the condemnation. The jail time, probably. Boys will be boys and all that. -"

"What?!" Will says again, very differently. He almost laughs at how utterly, extraordinarily wrong Diane's conclusion is, and wonders what sort of Total Bastard vibe he must be giving off today to deserve it. Seriously. He, who's never been with a hooker, not once, let alone committed-

(Well. Okay. There had been some nights, in Baltimore, that he couldn't say he _remembered _in the strictest sense of the word, and there had been one time he thought he'd seen Celeste leave something on the nightstand...but he tried to block that out. That, and everything else about Baltimore, and Celeste.)

But seriously. Him. Peter Florrick. No comparison. For Christ's sake, he'd never even cheated on one of his girlfriends, not that he'd had a huge number of serious girlfriends, but when he did he'd been faithful, and they'd only been _girlfriends_, not his-

(Well. Okay. That was almost true. He _had _kissed Alicia that time at the bar while he was still with Helena Linnata. But it had only been once, and it wasn't like he hadn't gotten his karmic retribution for that like ten million times over or anything.)

"Oh, I think he deserves it," Will says finally, and there's something in his tone that convinces Diane because she says, "Sorry. You seemed a little..."

"No, it's okay. I was just thinking about," - he casts around wildly for something plausible he could've been thinking about - "one of David Lee's divorces. The guy from Hinsdale - the Sears exec? I don't know, now we might want to try to push it back a few months."

Fortunately thinking on his feet is probably his best talent. It's what makes him a good lawyer, and what made him a good pitcher. Even now he does his best thinking while tossing a baseball back and forth between his hands.

"You're right," Diane responds, instantly switching gears to his manufactured concern. They're both briefed on it because it's such a lucrative case - normally they just let David run his little Family Law fiefdom in peace. "You'll talk to David?"

He hedges. Usually he gets along as well with David Lee as any human person possibly can, really, but last week they'd been on opposite sides in a budget discussion, and-

"No, it's better if I do it," says Diane, remembering that.

"Yeah."

After she leaves there are still a number of people milling about, because this is not only a good political scandal, it's a good Chicago political scandal, and beyond that it's a good Chicago political _lawyer _scandal.

The television screen has reverted back to talking heads, and their voices blend with the snippets of conversations going on around the room.

One of them finally breaks its way through to his consciousness.

"Do you think she'll divorce him?" It's a paralegal, talking to one of David Lee's newbies.

"Probably not," the Family Law guy answers (Will is horrible with names). "That sort never do, do they? The political wives? They've got nothing without their husband's careers, do they?"

"I don't know about that," the paralegal responds, "I mean, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards were lawyers. That's hardly..."

"They still didn't get a divorce, did they? Their husbands defined them. They knew which side their bread was buttered on."

"But-"

Family Law guy barrels on. "Still, you never know what a woman will do in those first few weeks after they find out, when their anger's at its peak. If it doesn't happen in the first few weeks it'll never happen - there are too many reasons not to. You know what, maybe I'll send her my card...you never know what the trigger will be. Think about having _her _as a client."

The vision of Alicia getting a card in the mail from a divorce attorney, with _his _name on the logo, is more than Will can bear, and it takes all of his considerable instincts of self-preservation not to fire the guy on the spot.

"Have a little class, people," Will says, blandly. Both of them look up, startled. "Since when did we become ambulance chasers? Seriously, that's like one step up from advertising with a 1-800 number on basic cable. Leave Alicia alone."

The paralegal hides a smile and the Family Law guy at least looks properly chastened after a setdown by one of the partners.

"Oh, I didn't mean-," the guy begins, but Will ignores him. He smirks down at Kalinda's boots as he leaves, but doesn't see her eyes following him all the way through the corridor.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Will looks up from his laptop (he'd been bringing one from home lately, just in case) to see Kalinda standing in front of him. "What's up?" he asks. "If it's about Valverde, take it to Diane. She's going to be point on that."

"You called her Alicia."

This gets his attention. "Sorry?"

"Mrs. State's Attorney. You called her Alicia." She pauses. "Last week, after the press conference. You said, 'Leave Alicia alone.'"

He stares at her. She stares back.

"That's her name, isn't it?" he finally replies, letting his eyes wander back to the computer screen.

Kalinda's head tilts infinitesimally to the left. "_Alicia_. Not Alicia Florrick." She allows that to sit out there for a few moments before continuing. "You know her."

He shuts his laptop with a snap. _Well, yeah_.

"Sure," Will says. "We went to law school together. At Georgetown." His tone is even. He's had a lot of practice.

Something about this response seems to faze Kalinda. A small frown mars her usually inscrutable expression. "Peter Florrick's wife went to law school?"

His anger (is it anger? Rage? Resentment? General pissed-offedness? The thesaurus in his head is failing him) has been seething for nearly a week. A week of hearing analysis of her outfit, and her expression, and how she's a stay-at-home mom who "doesn't get out much," and whether she's cold, or remote, or a million fucking different things that she is not, and so the slight incredulity in Kalinda's tone is nearly enough to set him off.

"What the hell, Kalinda?" Will's fingers grope for his absent baseball. "What is this, the 1950s? Yes, Alicia Florrick went to law school. She graduated near the top of our class." He's actually glad the baseball is across the room, because if he had it he might fire it through his stupid glass office door. "She passed the bar. She practiced for a few years. She was good." He stops, abruptly. _Get it together, Gardner. This has nothing to do with you._

"I didn't know that."

"Well, now you do." Will tries to lighten his tone, although with Kalinda it's not like it matters. "I think maybe you need to more exhaustively investigate your employers."

She lifts her eyebrows. "Is that a challenge?"

He laughs. It doesn't reach his eyes. "Was there anything else?"

"No." But Kalinda makes no move to leave, and looks at him in that way of hers, like she's listening to the things he's not saying.

So Will says some of them. Because he has to say it to someone. "What they're saying about her" - he waves his arm - "it's all wrong."

"So what's right?"

He considers this for a moment. What can he possibly say? That she's brilliant, and doesn't realize it? That she makes the people around her want to be better? That she has a gift for relating to anyone? That even though he hasn't had a real conversation with her in years, she's the best person he's ever known?

_Uh, right. _So he punts it. "No one should be defined entirely by their relationship to one other person," he says. "Everyone's life is made up of a patchwork of relationships. Don't you watch Oprah?"

Kalinda responds with her nod of skepticism. "Yeah. You just made that up."

Will shrugs. "It would take someone who DVRs her show every day to know."

Will's assistant pokes her head in the door. "They need you in the conference room." He nods and gets up.

"You're right," Kalinda says, "I do do that."

Will grabs some files from his desk and holds up a hand. "Hey, no judging."

She follows him out the door. "So does changing the subject like that usually work for you in court?"

"That's why they pay me the big bucks," Will says.

"Why didn't I know? That you were in law school with her?"

Will pauses in front of the conference room door. "I don't know, Kalinda. Shall I have my assistant print off the Georgetown Law alumni list, to make sure this never happens again?"

"Yeah, that'd be great," she says, and pats him on the shoulder. He rolls his eyes and goes into the meeting.

* * *

A/N: Thanks all for the reviews!


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Will thinks about skipping basketball that week; after all, lawyers are horrible gossips and judges even worse. He doesn't, though, because basketball is his solace. And Peter's exit from the scene has left a power vacuum that he can't ignore.

During warm-ups there's a lot of speculation: who talked to who about what and who knew what when. By the time the game starts Will can't tell if Peter's transgressions were the best-kept secret in Chicago politics or the worst. He certainly never had an inkling himself - well, not about the affair. Legally Peter had always operated from a moral gray area. At some point there'd been a change, though, because before Peter was far too canny and indomitable to be caught out.

It's when they break for halftime that Alicia is first mentioned. "Gotta be tough on the wife and kids," someone is saying to Jim Hughitt. Hughitt's an estate lawyer who lives in Highland Park, in the same neighborhood as the Florricks.

Will bends down to tie his shoe.

"Yeah," says Jim. "Poor Alicia. Our kids play soccer together - Elizabeth said she was looking just terrible at the tournament this weekend."

"She was there?" someone else asks.

"Apparently." Jim shakes his head. "I guess she didn't really talk to anyone. Elizabeth said she had no idea what to say to her. I mean, what can you say?"

"I can't believe she even left the house."

"Seriously. Why put yourself through that?"

"Probably to watch her kid play soccer," Ed Weldon interjects. Will remembers again why he and the judge are friends.

The others ignore him, though. "Your wife is close with Florrick's wife?" Jim is asked.

He shrugs. "Book club, stuff at the school, that kind of thing."

"So she really never had a clue? They're saying it was 18 times for God's sake. How can you not know?"

"Probably she didn't want to know," someone suggests.

"Yeah," Jim agrees, "I don't know. I've never really gotten to know her myself, she's a bit standoff-"

"Okay." Will can't take it anymore. "Are we going to play the second half or what?" He grabs a ball and tosses it over his shoulder to Jim. "27-22, isn't it?"

"27-23," someone corrects him.

Will's team wins by fifteen. He blocks three of Jim Hughitt's shots. It's his most blocks in a game, probably ever.

* * *

They win their next four cases against the State's Attorney's office. "You know, those implications you keep leaning on, they're going to wear out their welcome," Matan says to him one day as they walk down the steps out of the courthouse. "There's a statute of limitations on being the corrupt overlords. Pretty soon we'll be the plucky underdogs again."

Will grins at him. "Yeah? Well then we'll just go back to beating you on our own merits."

It's just after they've gone six out of seven that Will runs into Glen Childs. Literally bumps into him, in fact, heading around a corner. He looks more than a little harried.

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown, eh, Glen?" Will's still a little giddy from the courtroom, and the quip is out there before he can bite it back.

The look he gets in return is speaking. "I have to say, Will, I never took your firm for Florrick allies. It's a position you'll shortly find untenable, I can assure you."

"We see ourselves more as the allies of our clients," Will replies with a smile.

Childs smirks. "Considering the number of times _his_ name came up in _your _closing arguments today, I beg to differ."

"Well, we've got to give credit where credit's due," Will says, "and Peter Florrick did put quite a lot of work into that case during his...reign. It would be almost dishonest not to mention that fact, as often as possible."

"But this is my reign. And the best time to ally with the king is right after the coronation."

"Which, in this convoluted metaphor, would be an election, wouldn't it?" Will muses. "Let me know when one of those happens."

He's pretty sure this was too far, because Childs is no longer smiling. "I'm not sure you understood what I said about allies, Will. In fact, I would _bet _that you didn't."

And this, in a nutshell, was why Peter had always had the upper hand over Glen Childs. Even his threats were amateurish.

"You know, maybe I didn't," Will says. "I'd always thought the State's Attorney's office was the ally of the people of Cook County. Silly of me."

With anyone else, that would have been the end of it, but Childs is the sort that always has to have the last word.

"The quote was wrong, you know. It's Henry IV. 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.'"

It's all Will can do not to roll his eyes. "Well, you would know. Excuse me, I've got to be getting back. Good luck with all that."

He knows that if (when?) this exchange gets back to Diane he's in for an earful, but Will doesn't care. Childs is such a dick. It's almost enough to give one sympathy for Peter Florrick.

Almost, but not really. Not at all.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

After a gut-wrenching loss in the Super Bowl to the Packers - Will'd been the Ravens, he usually is, he still hasn't really switched over his football allegiances - he tears himself away from the game console and looks at his desk with a groan. The lady from the cleaning service had left a stack of old mail and papers there for him to go through. Nearly a month ago, she'd left it.

Normally he's a relatively organized person - growing up, his bedroom had always been neater than his sisters'. But with Stern gallivanting off again to God knows where, his caseload has been particularly heavy of late. Will doesn't mind - he likes his job, years ago had embraced it and allowed it to provide the thrills he used to seek elsewhere - but though he isn't personally suffering, the state of his desk is, in his stead.

About three quarters of the way through the stack are a glut of months-old holiday cards. Will's never bothered to send any out himself - well, technically he signs the SLG cards, which hardly counts - but despite this he's managed to remain on the lists of a truly astonishing number of holiday card sender-outers, through no fault of his own.

He's tempted to toss the entire stack in the trash but then remembers his Aunt Beatrice's multi-page Christmas letter, the enclosure of which generally requires an additional stamp, and the contents of which she expects him to be familiar with when she calls on his birthday. And if he's not, the phone call is liable to last for hours.

Will flips through the stack quickly, because Aunt Beatrice's cards invariably feature some combination of their three enormous German shepherds on the front. Before he has a chance to wonder whether it will be doggie antlers or canine snowflake sweaters this year, he discovers something that banishes the torments of his aunt's poor dogs from his mind completely.

The Florrick card.

Oh.

Will's always been on their holiday card list. Alicia has good taste, so the cards are classy - no ghastly pet costumes, for instance. Thankfully she never includes one of those let's-brag-about-how-many-trophies-our-kids-won-this-year family updates, because he knows that he wouldn't be able to help reading it if she did.

This year the card is cutsier than usual: Alicia, Peter and the two kids are huddled up beside a snowman in what he assumes is their front yard. Politician-like, Peter is without a coat, just a sweater and vest. It only takes a few seconds of calendar math for Will to realize that, at least allegedly, Peter's affair had already begun when this was taken.

The fucker.

He stares at their expressions for signs of strain but finds none. They both look happy. (_Of course Peter looks happy, _a small voice says, in his head, _he really thinks he has it all: the loving wife, the charming children, the career on the rise, the younger mistress..._)

Will is mildly surprised that this image hasn't been released in the press - after all, a politician's holiday card list can't be particularly discriminating. (He would only have to wait a week or so for this to happen - it would surface at the same time as the name "Amber Madison.")

He flicks open the card, eyes lingering on Alicia's half-familiar signature after scanning the generic message of holiday cheer. Her capital F's had always looked a little awkward and this one is no exception. He can hardly blame her - he remembers F and Q having been among his least favorites when he'd learned cursive in second grade. He wonders vaguely how difficult it is for women to adapt to a whole new signature when they get married. Maybe there's more in the weird chick flick cliche of women doodling "Mrs. Future Husband's Name" than he thought.

After all, it was awhile before he could stop referring to her in his head as Alicia Cavanaugh.

They'd kept in touch for a couple years after she was married, mostly via their newfangled law office email addresses. But when she'd stopped working that ceased altogether, mostly because she was no longer aflorrick-at-crozierabramsabbot-dot-com and he could never bring himself to pick up the phone and call her at home. Besides she had a family now and without the shared experience of a law career he was less than sure they'd have much to say to each other anymore, and didn't want to find out, at all, that they didn't.

Apart from the holiday cards the next time he'd heard from her was a few months after Stern had brought him and Diane in as partners. She'd sent him a congratulatory note. The stationery was very North Shore doyenne, not her at all. He thought it'd probably been a present from Peter's mother. The note was nice, and for about five seconds he'd pondered responding. He remembers being oddly touched that she had signed it from her only, and not from Peter as well.

He'd wondered how she'd heard of the partnership, because Peter the promising ASA was the type to have tunnel vision focus on his own career and not pay much attention to the good fortunes of others. Then he'd noticed a clipping in the envelope, of a short article about him from the most recent Georgetown Law alumni magazine. Ah. He'd tried to imagine what it was like for her, to read all about the careers of her classmates. Did she miss it? Did she envy them the sense of good work accomplished, the satisfaction of realized ambition, the starriness of future goals? Or did being the probable Mrs. Future State's Attorney and possible Mrs. Future Your Honor or Mrs. Future Congressman or Senator leave all that in the dust? (Because by then Peter had certainly been tapped as a rising star in the profession, and considering his dad he had the pedigree and connections to make it all happen.) Maybe she pitied them the constant grind, maybe the kids and the suburbs and the society and the marriage were more fulfilling, after all.

After that it was probably a year or so before he'd run into Alicia in Chicago, at some benefit event. It wasn't really his scene but as a new partner he had to make an effort to get out there with the clients. Peter's scene, is totally what it was.

His date (whose name he can't recall) had known someone at Peter and Alicia's table. Most of their conversation is gone from his memory, but surely it'd just run to the requisite small talk:

"How long has it been?"

"Oh, this is what'shername..."

"...the kids are great... both in school now..."

"...found an apartment in Streeterville..."

"We love Highland Park, don't we, Alicia?"

"...perfect for the kids..."

Something like that, probably. But one thing from that conversation remains crystal clear, because it had been distinctly awkward, and not just for him.

"So remind me, Will," Peter had said, arm draped on the back of Alicia's chair, "which firm is it you're at, again? That one in the Loop - Stern Lockhart, isn't it?"

Peter's eyes had leveled with Will's, and Will wondered if he'd done it on purpose. Annoyed at having to be that guy who toots his own horn, but unwilling to let it pass, Will had corrected him: "Stern Lockhart Gardner."

The thing that stood out about the moment was that Alicia had corrected Peter, too, and in unison with Will: "Stern Lockhart _Gardner_."

He remembers being unable to keep his lips from curling into a slight smile, and Alicia's eyes briefly meeting his, and Peter glancing between the two of them, and his blood starting to rush and heart starting to pump like it had all those years before.

The awkwardness had stretched on for another moment until his sanity finally stepped in and he realized that this was not a path he could go down again, _ever_, and so he'd extracted himself and what'shername and steered clear of Florricks for the rest of the night.

But here he is, years later, thinking of it again, pulse heightened, Alicia's voice still clear in his head: "Stern Lockhart _Gardner_."

He sets the Florrick card aside. The one just underneath is from his Aunt Beatrice. This year the dogs are all wearing Santa hats, with bell collars around their necks.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

"Are you friends with the Florricks?"

Will looks up, startled. He hadn't even known she was in his office.

"'Hey, Will. How's it going? Hasn't the weather been terrible? Did you see the Bulls game last night?'" He shakes his head at her. "That's how normal people begin conversations. They also, you know, knock."

Kalinda does one of her almost-shrugs. "The door was open." A beat. "So, are you?"

"Friends?" he asks. "Why?"

"I don't know, I've heard that sometimes, when people go to school together, they form that sort of congenial bond known as friendship."

"Have you been watching Oprah again?"

"Yup. I learned a new thing."

"See, I knew that all you needed was some vicarious human affection from a television personality."

She just looks at him, expectant. He sighs inwardly.

"Not really, no," Will says. "I knew Alicia at school, but that was years ago. I don't know Peter that well. Sometimes he plays basketball, but so do half the lawyers in Chicago, it seems like. I mean, do I look like I run with the North Shore country club crowd?"

"I don't know," Kalinda responds. "They don't talk about country clubs on Oprah."

"Well," he says with a laugh, "I might be a baller, but I suck at golf. Believe me."

The next word is out of his mouth before it dawns on him that prolonging this conversation is not in his best interest. "Why?"

"I figured if you were buddy-buddy with the State's Attorney I'd probably have known about it."

Will sighs again, this time outwardly. "So you knew the answer before you asked the question?"

"Pretty much."

"Then what is it we're doing here exactly?"

Kalinda's smile is angelic. "Just making conversation."

He narrows his eyes at her. "All right then. How about you? You worked for Peter at the SA's office. Are you friends?"

"No."

Will persists. "But I've heard that sometimes, at the workplace, a congenial bond develops that some call friendship."

"I don't have friends."

"All right, forget Oprah. What you need is Dr. Phil."

"Who?"

Will laughs. "You are something else." He pauses. "Seriously, K, what is this about?"

Kalinda's face is a mask, as always, but her fingers start to uncharacteristically fiddle with the edge of her pocket. "It's just..." she begins, "they probably don't have many friends right now."

"The Florricks?"

"Yeah."

Will bites the inside of his cheek. "Peter Florrick will be fine," he says. "He's got great lawyers, half the charges are probably bogus, and Childs isn't exactly a sympathetic adversary. He'll overreach, and Peter will be back, eventually. The public loves a good redemption story. In fact this'll probably work in his favor. Look at all the press. Now he's a national figure. His friends get that, believe me."

"That's cynical."

"Well..." he shrugs.

"But what if his wife divorces him?" Kalinda asks.

"She won't," he says immediately.

"How do you know?"

"Because I know her, Alicia's too-" Will stops, suddenly. He is going to say "too forgiving," but realizes that isn't quite right. She can hold grudges. She'd never forgiven Tim Leahy for that awful comment he made at mock trial. And then, of course, there were her parents.

Kalinda prompts him. "Too what?"

"Loyal," he says instead, because now he has to say something. That isn't right either, but he doesn't have time to analyze, he's got to get out of this conversation. "And they have kids, right?"

"That will make a difference?"

"You're lying, you've been erasing all those Oprah episodes off the DVR, haven't you?"

"I don't have a television."

"Oh, God." Will gets up and steers her toward the door. "What is it you do with that lucrative salary I pay you, exactly?"

"Mostly narcotics," she admits.

"Well, if you could score me some tomorrow, that'd be great. I'm up against George Jamison in court."

"Is he the one that..."

"Never shuts the hell up? Yeah."

"I'll work on it," she promises, letting the glass door close behind her.

He stares after her but it's not her he's seeing. Completely immersed in his own tangled thoughts, Will forgets to wonder at the motivations of Kalinda, of all people, in broaching the subject in the first place.

* * *

A/N: This is the last build-up chapter before more starts to be set in motion. Thanks for sticking with this story!


	8. Chapter 8

8.

Compartmentalization. That's another of his defining character traits. It'd kept him calm on the mound. It keeps him composed in the courtroom. Emotion is something to be employed or played on. It's never a driving force, because he always has a box to put it in.

He's not sure if it's an admirable quality, exactly.

Certainly none of his girlfriends have ever thought so.

(Speaking of which: he's still seeing Marie, but it's more off now, than on. She's blonde, and a bit younger, and ever since the first photo of Amber Madison was leaked...it's stupid, he knows, but there it is.)

The Florrick scandal doesn't fit into his boxes, because it touches on everything: his work life, his social life, choices he's made, choices he didn't, the past, the now. So far he's just been sitting back passively and letting it mess with his internal boundaries, treading water until he can snap everything back into focus.

It's a Thursday and it's getting late and he's tired but the Cubs are at the Dodgers and it's tight in the top of the eighth. Their season isn't quite in the bag yet so this one still might mean something.

The thing is, he can't shake Kalinda's comment: "They probably don't have many friends right now."

What Jim Hughitt said at the pickup game echoes in his head, those horrible suburban moms who shunned Alicia because they "didn't know what to say" to her.

He'd judged them harshly, but how is he any different? He'd lied to Kalinda, of course - he's Alicia's friend. No matter that their lives had diverged, no matter that they hadn't really spoken in years, no matter that...other things, they're still friends.

So what does that say about him? That he prefers to mind his own business and let people keep their private lives private? (Maybe.) That he still feels an awkwardness, holds a grudge, bears a torch? (Probably.) That he's a coward? (Definitely.)

By the bottom of the ninth and his second beer (now it's tied) he's resolved to get in touch with Alicia. To give her his support. Naturally it'll be awkward as hell but it's a gesture and he's her friend.

A phone call he rules out right off, because it's already nearly midnight and if he doesn't do this now he probably won't, ever. Also there are fewer opportunities for awkward pauses in an email.

Of course the only address for her he's got is that outdated one -at-crozierabramsabbot-dot-com, a firm that doesn't even exist anymore, really. But it's not like he's some schmuck off the street, he can research stuff, and everyone's got an online footprint these days. (He tries to banish the skeptical Kalinda face from his mind's eye.)

The first several things Will tries (directories, mostly - private school PTA, charity boards, women's clubs) are busts. What exactly, he wonders, is the point of an online directory if it completely lacks any of the actionable contact information implied by the title "directory"? He forgets sometimes how obsessively private North Shore people are. Not that it doesn't make sense, considering the propensity of their politician and executive spouses or spoiled brat children to do embarrassing, high-profile shit. Not a few of them are clients of his firm. Peter is hardly the first to take a fall.

He is more than a little surprised, though, at how seldom he's finding her name listed. He had the impression, largely from those stupid society magazines that lie around in the office lobby, that Alicia and Peter were active in a bunch of clubs and community foundations. Wow, he thinks, so even charities do social ostracism now?

Needless to say, she's not on LinkedIn. She's not on Facebook, either (Will barely is himself, but last summer Stern Lockhart Gardner hired a social media intern, so...).

It's the bottom of the eleventh (no further score, although the Cubs loaded the bases in the tenth) when he logs into the Georgetown Law Alumni network. He browses through the alumni directory (a for-real directory) and there she is.

Will's a bit proud of himself until he realizes that Kalinda could've turned all this up in maybe 30 seconds.

Alicia's profile is miles shorter than everyone else's - it lists some award she won in law school, where she interned, and the two years at Crozier Abrams and Abbot - but it includes an email address and was last updated only a couple years ago. So she hadn't left that part of her life completely behind, after all.

The Cubs get a solid hit in the top of the twelfth and it sounds nice coming off the bat but an outfielder makes a leaping grab and so it's still tied.

He stares at the blinking cursor while the next two guys strike out. (Dammit.) He'd concentrated on the concrete task of finding the email address but now that he's found it he doesn't really have a clue what to say. Why isn't there a Hallmark card or something for former law school classmates whose husbands cheat and publicly humiliate them? Or at least some sort of Strunk and White guide to Awkward Email Style?

For instance, the "Subject" line. What can he possibly put there that isn't completely inane ("Long time no see"; "Sorry about your tough time") or totally inappropriate ("Re: Peter the fucking asshole" etc.)?

He decides to leave it blank for now, but moving on to the actual thing he's similarly flummoxed by how to address her. "Dear Alicia" feels too formal, "Hi" or "Hey Alicia" too informal, no address altogether a total cop-out. What about just "Alica"? A bit cold?

God. He's been commended for his briefs by the bar associations of both Maryland and Illinois but he can't write one measly email?

He starts typing, but after nearly 10 minutes he's become intimately acquainted with the backspace key and has little to show for it.

"_Alica,_

"_It's Will Gardner__._" (Redundant.) DELETE

"_You're probably wondering how I got this address -I found it on the Georgetown alumni site__._" (Unnecessary. Just having her email makes him seem stalkerish enough, he doesn't need to elaborate.) DELETE

"_I thought I should_" (so it's like a chore?) "_I just wanted to check in, to see how you're doing__._" (How could she possibly be doing? Obviously not great.) "_I've been thinking about you lately and_" (something an ex-whatever-they-were should never say, ever). DELETE DELETE DELETE

"_Sorry to be only getting in touch with you now. I know you've had a lot going on and I wasn't sure_" (oh, right, definitely, make it all about him.) DELETE

He lets his attention drift back to the game. The Cubs' pitching rotation, already stretched thin from a rainout doubleheader over the weekend, is starting to show signs of strain, but they manage to get out of the fourteenth. Just barely. The Dodgers were off yesterday and have no such problem.

Then the Cubs' leadoff batter hits one over the fences and Will, inspired, resolves to write the shit out of this email.

_"Alicia,_

_I can't imagine what it's like to be you right now. You've always been such a strong person and I know you've got a deep reserve to draw on._

_I know we haven't talked in awhile but I hope you know that I'm here. If there's ever anything you need, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'll do whatever I can to help._

_Take care,_

_Will"_

It's hardly his purplest prose but it's short and to the point and hits the right notes. (It's a sign of his constant, expert compartmentalizing that he doesn't even think in the terms "it conveys what he feels.")

Now it's the bottom of the fifteenth, up by one, and the Cubs give up a double on the first pitch. Crap. Then a walk. Double crap.

He reads the email again and now he isn't quite so sure. It's a little presumptuous, isn't it? What can _he_ possibly do for _her_? She's got her kids and the North Shore cone of silence and her family and the Florricks know pretty much everyone in Chicago who matters, so...

(Sacrifice fly. One down. Runners advance, but just one base.)

But then again that's the Florricks, and she's still at least a little bit Alicia Cavanaugh, the girl who fought for everything she got, perhaps more so now than in quite awhile, and Alicia Cavanaugh _had _sometimes needed Will Gardner, so...

(Pop-up straight to the shortstop. Runners stay. Two down.)

He's reread it probably ten times. There's not a hint of "I told you so" in it, is there? She knows he never liked Peter.

(The count's 2-1.)

This is probably a dumb idea. How many beers has he had? Just two, based on the number of empties on the counter. The third one's sitting beside him, untouched and warm.

(Full count, now. The batter's fouled off the last four pitches.)

Okay, he thinks. Signs from the universe are a thing that other people believe in, aren't they? If it's an out, he'll send it. If it's a walk, he'll save it, think about it tomorrow. If it's a hit, he'll delete it and forget about it altogether.

BAM.

A walk-off home run. Dodgers 10, Cubs 8. Well then. Fuck. Crystal fucking clear, that.

He stares at his screen a moment and presses a button.

(Send. He's never believed in things like other people.)


	9. Chapter 9

9.

He doesn't hear back from her the next day.

Or the next.

Or the next.

By the end of the week Will's boxed the email away in the back of his mind. When he does think of it he almost wonders if there is something in signs from the universe, after all.

_Almost _wonders.

(The Dodgers swept the Cubs, by the way. After the 15-inning heartbreaker they'd managed one run, combined, in the next two games.)

On Friday he's back at his apartment, changing to meet Marie for dinner. It's some swanky, newish place, with those small, artsy portions, not really his style. But he had a good day in court and he's still a bit buzzed from it so he wants to go out, do something.

He's about to leave when he sees his Blackberry still sitting on the counter. Right. He grabs it and is in the act of pocketing it when suddenly the phone chirps and almost jumps from his hand.

It's the chirp of "new email." From work, probably. Diane was still at the office when he left. Will hesitates, then presses the Mail icon with his thumb as he turns the doorknob to leave. He really should check it, in case she's heard something about...

Oh.

It's from Alicia.

He lets the door swing shut. And leans against it.

Okay.

He wills his mind into blankness, wills his pulse back to normal. It is, after all, just normal correspondence. Do people still use that word? He wonders.

"_Dear Will_," (the email runs), "_thank you so much for the kind note. I can't tell you how much I appreciated it. My kids are both very protective of the computers, otherwise I would have replied earlier._

_Thanks for not asking how I'm doing. I'm serious. It's the only thing people ever ask, lately. And you can tell they don't really want to hear the answer, so I just smile and say we're doing fine. That sounds ungrateful, doesn't it? __Since you astutely didn't ask, I think I _will _tell you how we're doing. Of course it's Zach and Grace that I'm worried about most. I try to shelter them from all the media circus but they just find everything on the Internet. And the kids at school - well, you know what they're like at that age._" (He does some quick math - they must both be teenagers by now.) "_Peter's mother tries to help, but she's just so..._

_No. I shouldn't complain. She's been great, really, and I can't forget that she's dealing with all of this too. But __Zach and Grace are confused, and it's hard to know what to say to them when I don't even know what to say to myself. I've been trying to keep their routine the same but maybe they should switch schools, go to a place where no one knows their parents._

_I'm sure you know they're handing down the verdict next week. It's hard to believe how fast everything has gone. The lawyers are a bit thrown, actually. They thought the SA's office would draw it out more to milk the media coverage. I guess I shouldn't complain about that, either._

_Speaking of lawyers...how have you been lately? I'm always hearing excellent things about your firm. I can barely stumble through any of the law reviews without running across something you wrote or a reference to a case 'argued by William Gardner.' That's really great, Will. I hope you know you deserve it. I always thought you were the best in our class._

_Thanks, again, for the email. I hope I haven't overburdened you with too much. I don't talk to a lot of people these days. I should go, though. I have to pick up Zach from practice. You'd be proud of me, I can actually sit through an entire basketball game now without cheering for someone to score a goal._

_Your friend,_

_Alicia_"

Oh, God. His first impulse is to pick up the phone and call her but he isn't sure...is Peter still home on bail? He's been avoiding Florrick news as much as it's possible to at work. But no, she's on her way to pick up her son, anyway. Right.

Will rereads the email. It's so her he can't stand it. "I think I _will_ tell you how we're doing" - then barely a word about herself, instead running on about the kids and her mother-in-law and the lawyers and asking about how _he's _doing, for pete's sake.

Ha.

There's also nothing about Peter. Well, okay, the entire email is about Peter, but while he dominates the subtext, his name never actually surfaces in the text. Will wonders what that means. Nothing, probably. And everything.

See, here's the thing about Alicia. The portrayals of her as reserved are absolute bullshit, because so are most people's connotations of "reserved": Aloof. Cold. Prim. Retiring.

No.

Alicia _is _reserved, but not like that. Growing up with those parents, constantly shielding her brother, propelling herself through Georgetown - of course she'd developed a reserve, if only for self-preservation.

She never quite fit into the new tell-all, share-all culture of the last two decades. He knows because he didn't, either. One of the first things they'd bonded over was a law school professor who went positively batshit when any student began an answer in class with the words "I feel..."

"I'm not a bit interested in what you 'feel,'" the professor had said, in one of their first classes. "Not one of us in this room cares what you 'feel.' What do you _think_? The jury doesn't care what you feel. They care what _they_ feel. The judge doesn't want to know what you feel. What do you _know_?"

They'd both agreed with her. They spent half the night at a pool party ignoring the pool and sipping ridiculous drinks and talking about how they agreed with her. And so their reserve was the affinity that laid the foundation for their friendship.

(But this thing they shared had been the death knell of anything further between them, if only he'd known it. He always blamed it on the timing. But their connection had never been able to penetrate her shell, or his boxes.

Peter isn't reserved, at all.)

But Alicia's reserve is different than his. Will holds everything back until feelings become almost abstract concepts, things other people have that he has to approximate, for the sake of human interaction.

Alicia, on the other hand...Alicia feels and it's in all that she does. She doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve, but she doesn't have to because it's in everything else.

The phone jumps in his hand again and this time he does drop it. By now he's sitting on the floor, back propped against the door jamb, so it doesn't have far to fall.

It's Marie.

Oh, shit. A quick glance at his watch tells him he's over half an hour late for dinner. He's been sitting here for nearly 45 minutes. Shit.

Will lets it go to voicemail, waits a bit, and calls back with some excuse about being tied up at work. They lost their table and it's obvious Marie's pissed although she doesn't say so outright. He offers to meet her somewhere else and get a reservation for later in the week but even he can tell he sounds pretty half-hearted.

Usually he's better at simulating contrition - he's not sure what's wrong with him today.

(Of course it doesn't help that he can't remember the name of the restaurant. All those new-agey places have vague, four-letter names that sound like jargonized Latin. You'd think they'd want to set themselves apart or something.)

Anyway Marie hedges on his offer and when they hang up he's pretty sure they're done. Oops. Not exactly his plan for the evening. He tries to grasp at something like regret, but to be honest he feels bad mostly because he prefers to be more graceful about ending things like this.

Does that make him a jerk? Probably.

Whatever. He grabs a Gatorade from the kitchen and unloops his tie. Maybe he'll go to the gym instead.

He leaves his phone on the counter.

* * *

The next day Will replies to Alicia's email. This time he manages to jot something off quickly instead of agonizing over it like a teenage girl. (He blames the extenuating circumstances of the Cubs' extra-inning nailbiter for messing with his head.) It's nothing much, just something to, well...she'd said she "didn't talk to many people, these days." He relates a funny story from work and throws in a joke about her lack of sports knowledge. It's something like he might've written 13 years ago.

This time when he doesn't hear back from her he's pretty sure he knows the reason why.

Because it's that day that prosecution first introduces the tapes. And then leaks them.

"Glen Childs isn't messing around," Kalinda says, on their way back from interviewing a potential witness.

"Nope." He really doesn't want to talk about this.

"Do you think it's a miscalculation?"

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"Overemphasizing the sex. People like to be outraged, but they end up forgiving men for that, don't they? Like with Clinton."

Will responds after a moment of thought. "Actually, I think it's probably a _calculation_."

Kalinda blinks. "To draw attention away from the misuse of the office charges."

"Yeah."

"Because there are holes in it."

"Yeah."

"Makes sense," she says. "As a strategy."

Will can feel his hands itching to ball into fists. He resists the urge.

Kalinda glances at him and he knows she can sense the anger beneath his well-schooled expression.

"You don't agree?" she asks.

"It's hard to comment on strategy when all I know about the case is what's reported on WGN," he says. "Which I'm sure is mostly crap."

"_Is _that all you know about it?"

"What do you mean?" he asks again. It's a question that comes up a lot, when conversing at length with Kalinda.

"I don't know."

"Okay..." he frowns at her. "I'm not exactly buddy-buddy with Daniel Golden, so I don't see how..."

"Forget it."

"Childs is an asshole, but he's not an idiot," Will says, "so I'm sure he at least thinks he knows what he's doing. I can see myself playing it the same way."

"But...?"

"But what?"

"I don't know," she says again, frustratingly. "Your intonation implied there was a 'but.'"

He shifts his bag to the other shoulder. Suddenly it feels heavy. "_But _Childs doesn't give a shit about the collateral damage. I don't know if I would. Probably not. But I hope so."

"The 'collateral damage'?"

"Yeah."

"I see."

They walk silently for a few minutes.

"Do you know anything about her?" he asks suddenly.

"About whom?"

"Amber Madison."

She stops walking and looks at him. "Why would I know anything about her?"

Will meets her eyes and shakes his head. "No, I - she's supposed to be some kind of local call girl celebrity, or something. Such a thing apparently exists. I just - you know, never mind."

"Okay."

"I just don't get it," he bursts after they start walking again.

"Get it?"

"The draw. I mean, I've seen the pictures, and sure, she's hot, I guess, but she's hardly..." He manages to catch himself before he says 'Alicia.'

"Hardly what?"

"Worth going to prison for," he says instead.

"But it's not about her, is it?" Kalinda says. "Why does anyone do anything with high stakes? It's like roulette, or sky-diving, or heroin, or..." Her eyes drift to his.

"Or gambling," Will says quietly.

"Right. The thrill. The high. The power trip."

He swallows. Neither of them says anything else until they get back to the office.

* * *

A/N: We're about to enter the home stretch. Thanks for all your reviews!


	10. Chapter 10

10.

Peter's sentence is by no means the harshest Will's ever seen, but it's not lenient, either, especially considering the number of Cook County judges who owe him. Or perhaps that's the reason - no one on the bench wants to be suspected of ties to those alleged lighter sentences for favors. Not alleged, now. Proven before the law.

He wonders how Alicia's handling it all. He'd considered emailing her again but he's sure she has more than enough to deal with.

He finds himself thinking about her kids, too, which is weird because he never really has much before. Beyond, that is, being irrationally pissed at them for cutting short Alicia's law career. But it has to suck to find out your dad cheated on your mom, read about it constantly on the Internet and see it on TV every day, and then have your dad sent to prison. He wonders if it's better or worse that they're old enough to understand.

About a week after the cameras follow Peter Florrick on his walk of shame to Tamms Minimum, Will's sitting in his office trying to decipher Jonas Stern's chickenscratch. He's first-chairing an appeal of a case that Stern had worked on before gallivanting off to be obnoxious and superior in some Third World nation.

He's been plugging away doggedly at it for awhile, but now his eyes are starting to cross and the last three "sentences" have had a concerning lack of verbs, so...

"Excuse me, Mr. Gardner?" His assistant's on vacation, and there's an intern answering his phone this week. He's the most polite boy Will has ever met, and apologizes for existing, basically. Will's never been sirred so much in his life. He imagines that if this is what it's like to be knighted, he would forgo the honor.

"What's up, Jeremiah?"

"I'm so sorry to interrupt, sir - if it's a bad time - I can certainly take a message...I'll just do that, shall I?"

Will is pretty sure his expression is the very definition of nonplussed. "You didn't even tell me what..."

"Oh, of course. I'm so sorry sir." It's an effort, it really is, to keep his eyes from rolling. "You have a phone call, sir."

"Go ahead and put it through."

Jeremiah glances down at the papers strewn across Will's lap. "I can tell you're busy with something," he says, "I really didn't mean to interrupt. Shall I just take a message?"

Will desperately wants to bang his head against something. Anything. This kid has got to be one of the equity partners' grandsons because there's no way he got hired on merit. "Jeremiah. You answer the phone and, when I'm not here, you take messages. Right now I am here, not in a meeting with anyone. You are _supposed _to interrupt me. It's your job."

Now it's Jeremiah who looks nonplussed.

"Who is it?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"On the _phone_. Who is on the phone?"

"Sorry. Yes. She said her name was Alicia."

The pen that Will has been gripping to vent his frustration drops to his lap. "Alicia?"

"She didn't say her last name," Jeremiah says apologetically. "I should have asked for it, though, shouldn't I? Oh no. I'm sorry. I'll just go take a message and-"

"No." This comes out a bit more abruptly than he intends, judging by the size of the intern's widened eyes.

Will tries smiling at him to soften the blow but now Jeremiah is just totally freaked out. "Put the call through, please," he says.

"Yes, sir."

Fortunately Jeremiah's failings in the realm of human interaction do not extend to his mastery of the phone system, which rings before Will can finish organizing Stern's notes back into their files.

He picks it up on the first ring. He doesn't know anyone else named Alicia.

"Will Gardner."

"Hi, Will - this is Alicia Florrick."

"Alicia. Hi. It's good to hear from you."

"I hope I'm not interrupting..."

"Oh, no. Believe me when I say you're really not. I'm trying to read another lawyer's notes and I now have renewed sympathy for my second grade teacher. And pharmacists everywhere."

She laughs a bit. "My kids both have terrible handwriting. Of course they type everything now. It's like a lost art."

"Well, it's an art Jonas Stern never managed to find, either," he grumbles. Then: "I'm sorry, I'm sure you didn't call to listen to me complain about the name partners."

"No, it's fine. Normal." His heart tugs a bit at this.

"Is there something-" "Listen, I'm going to-"

"Sorry, go ahead," Will says.

"I'm sorry I didn't respond to your last email," she says. God, if they keep this up it'll be like Jeremiah never left. "Everything's been just..."

"Oh, no, I - I get it."

"I'm running some errands in the city tomorrow," Alicia begins (quickly, as if afraid she'll lose her nerve), "and...will you be around?" She continues without letting him respond. "It'd be nice to catch up, and - and there's something I wanted to maybe ask your advice about. If you're not that's okay - I'm sure you're probably busy, you must have so many clients..."

Will finally gets a word in edgewise. "No, that sounds good." He's actually not sure what he's got going tomorrow but he knows he's not in court.

"Oh. Okay. Great."

They set a time and place - 10:30 the next morning at a Starbucks a couple blocks from his office - and exchange cell numbers. And then they both hang up and he's just said "See you tomorrow" to Alicia for the first time since Georgetown.

Right.

He's not at all sure what to think about this and so he doesn't. The appeal occupies his mind until he heads home, late. Then he plays NBA Jam (the classic, on an emulator) until he falls asleep, late. He thinks he's doing a bang-up job not thinking about it, actually - until he arrives at work (early) and meets Kalinda in the elevator.

"Nice tie," she says.

"What?" He looks down. "What do you mean by that?"

"That I like your tie. I'm not sure that there's another interpretation for those words."

"But..." he looks down again. "It's just - it's a normal tie. Part of my regular tie rotation."

"You have a tie rotation?" (He does. It's set up like a pitching rotation. Starters, middle relievers, closers, aces, rookies...he's pretty sure he should tell no one about this, ever.)

"I wear this tie all the time."

"Okay."

"I do."

"I'm starting to feel like I should apologize for complimenting your tie."

"No, I - I'm not sure why you should notice it today, of all the many days I've worn it."

She smirks, and he knows she thinks something's up with him. "It must just really be working for you today."

When Will gets to his office he switches the tie with a spare one he keeps in his desk drawer. During the morning staff meeting he pretends not to see Kalinda's raised eyebrow as she walks past the conference room window.


	11. Chapter 11

11.

When Will gets to Starbucks she's already there, sipping a latte at a table that's smushed between two others and a couch.

"Do you want anything else?" he asks after they greet each other. "I'm just gonna..." he motions toward the counter.

"No, I'm good," she says. "This is actually my third coffee today. My mother-in-law made it this morning and she always makes it too weak so I made another pot after she left but she must've messed with the timer because this time it was _really _strong and wow I sound like I'm on caffeine overload, don't I?"

"You sure you don't have a Con Law final tomorrow?" he asks with a laugh. Alicia laughs too but there's something conscious about it, almost as if he'd hit close to the mark.

"I'll be right back."

The line is long (it's pretty crowded - Alicia was lucky to get a table) and so it takes awhile to get his drink. A few minutes pass and he's still waiting. He glances toward Alicia to make an apologetic/exasperated gesture when he notices a group of women at the end of the line doing the same thing. Looking at her, that is.

Staring, really.

"Is that her? I swear that's her."

"Who?"

"The wife. You know, the State's Attorney?"

"The one who...with the...?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think it's her."

One of them holds up her phone. "It totally is. Look."

The others squint at it. "You're right. Her hair's different."

(It is. Less buttoned-down. Will likes it better, now.)

"I don't know how she can stay with him. _I _wouldn't."

"I don't know how she can go out in public. I mean, _everyone's _heard those tapes."

They're not being particularly subtle and soon the whispering and staring has spread through the line and to several of the tables. Will can tell Alicia's noticed by the way her back's stiffened.

"Her husband's in prison now, right? A couple years just for sleeping with a hooker? I hardly think that's..."

"No, wasn't it for bribery or something like that?"

Will's had enough. Is this what it's been like for her, this whole time? He thinks for a moment, then fishes something out of his pocket.

Back at their table, Alicia's phone rings. She picks it up, stares at it, and lifts her head toward him with a puzzled expression. He shrugs and puts his own phone to his ear.

A ghost of smile appears on her face as she answers. "Hello?"

"So I totally forgot how much I hate coffee chains," he says. "I think I might prefer your mother-in-law's weak coffee to waiting this long."

"I'm not sure I would make such a hasty claim, sight unseen. Er, taste untasted."

"See, I'm a pretty big deal at work," he continues. "People _bring me _coffee. When I ask for it. Without me giving them my credit card. Interns have irrevocably spoiled the Starbucks experience for me."

"Well, it's nice once in awhile to see how the other half lives."

He laughs. "Nah, the other half sucks. Do you mind if we go somewhere else? I'm kind of hungry and there's a diner around the corner a couple blocks that has better stuff than undercooked scones."

Alicia's not fooled. "Will, it's fine. Really. We don't have to..."

"I know," he says as he steps out of line. He ends the call and holds the door open for her, glancing down at her shopping bags as they exit.

"The Puma Store?" he asks.

"The zipper on my daughter's gym bag broke last week," Alicia explains. "This is the one that a bunch of the other girls have, I guess."

The diner's just opened and so they're the only customers. Will gets a coffee and a muffin and makes a big show of ordering decaf for Alicia. (He's not actually that hungry but eats the muffin anyway to maintain his pretense.)

"So," he begins, fingers toying with the edge of the muffin wrapper. "You mentioned on the phone that there was something you wanted advice about?"

Alicia puts down her coffee mug. "Right," she says. "There is."

"I promise not to charge you by the hour," Will quips.

As soon as the words leave his lips he realizes that they were absolutely the stupidest thing he could possibly have said. What. The. Fuck. Is wrong with him?

When he opens his mouth again to try to formulate some apology he meets Alicia's eyes and to his astonishment she bursts out laughing.

"I am so, so sorry," Will starts to say but her laughter is infectious and soon both of them are going.

"It's just," she says, between breaths, "your face...you looked so horrified. I could tell the exact moment when..." And they both start laughing again.

When he finally catches his breath he tries again. "You know I didn't mean-"

But Alicia cuts him off with a smile. "I know what you meant, Will." She shakes her head a bit. "Actually what I wanted to talk to you about is marginally related."

"It is?"

"Not really, only in the sense that - Peter's legal bills."

It's the first time she's uttered his name and he tries to read her but the Alicia-shell is in full force.

"You can imagine what those were like," she continues. He starts to interject but she holds a hand up. "No, we're fine. I'm - we're putting the house up for sale. It'll be good for the kids. A new place, new school."

"Where are you going to move?" he asks.

"Well that's - it depends." She takes a sip of coffee. "I'm thinking about going back to work."

"Really?" Will's not sure why he wasn't expecting this. It makes a lot of sense. "That's great, Alicia."

Alicia nods. "Yeah, I think it'll be - it'll be good."

"Have you decided where?" He knows Peter's persona non grata these days in a lot of circles but he's still got plenty of friends, and Peter's father remains in people's memories. He can't imagine Alicia will have much trouble.

"No, that's..." For some reason she seems nervous. "That's what I wanted to ask you. Do you know any firms around that are hiring?"

Will finishes chewing the last of his muffin. "Oh," he responds, taken aback. And she looks at him across the table, biting her lip, and suddenly he gets it. Alicia doesn't want to use Peter's connections for this. She wants it to be hers.

And so she's asking him.

Will swallows.

"I know it's not a good time, with the economy, but if you hear about anything..."

"I'll look into it," he says quickly. "I'm happy to. You know law firms, there's always comings and goings."

"What I'm looking for is a first year position. It's been so long - naturally I would start again from the bottom."

"Right," Will says. "Of course. I know a few people I can check with."

And then he buries his face in the oversized coffee mug because something is occurring to him and it's taking up his entire mind but he can't say it and so he's chugging coffee instead.

"Really? That's great. Thank you, Will, I-"

The coffee's gone, now. "It's no problem. Like I said, I'm happy to help. I'm just glad you thought of me. To ask."

He's trying to tell her he gets it and he knows she understands because she comes back with, "Well, you said it yourself. You're kind of a big deal. I mean, people bring you coffee and everything."

Will laughs. "Soon enough they'll be bringing you coffee too."

"Do you know anyone else who's done it?" Alicia asks. "Come back, that is? When their kids are older?"

He doesn't, at least not off the top of his head. But he doesn't say that. What he says is "You'll be fine. You were at the top of our class. Remember how your roommate - what was her name?"

"Alexandra," she supplies.

"Right. The law firm of Al and Al." Alicia laughs.

"Remember how angry she used to get sometimes, because she thought stuff came so easily to you? Didn't she throw your Civil Procedure book through a window once?"

"She did," Alicia admits. "That feels like such a long time ago."

"And remember," he persists, "how sad Harrison Abbot was when you told him you were leaving?"

"Yes, but-"

"And it's not like you've spent the last 13 years completely out of the game. You read stuff. You know people. You've been around the law constantly."

She frowns. "That's what I used to think. That I was still 'in the game.' Now I'm not sure."

"Don't be ridiculous," he says. "You helped with Peter's speeches, during the campaign."

It's the first time he's mentioned Peter's name and Alicia's look at him is searching. "How did you-"

"I didn't. But his speeches were good. And you're a good writer."

She stares at him, and starts laughing. "That is like the falsest syllogism ever. They really pay you for that?"

Will nods. "See? Look at that. You just totally caught me out. You're an awesome lawyer. Any firm would be lucky to have you." She shakes her head at him but he can tell she's a bit reassured.

It's what he used to live for, cheering her up.

They both pay for their coffee and muffins (Alicia gets two to go, to take home for her kids) and Will promises to get in touch with her if he hears something. It's only after he sees her head across the bridge toward the train station that he finally lets himself think about the thing his mind is bursting with.

Alicia hadn't once mentioned Stern Lockhart Gardner. His firm. Because that's not what Alicia does. But that's all he can think about. Stern Lockhart Gardner. His firm. Who's been interviewing prospective junior associates for the past week.

Alica. And _his_ firm.

* * *

A/N: Four chapters to go. Thanks for continuing to follow and review this story!


	12. Chapter 12

12.

It's a few days before he has a chance to bring it up with Diane, at the tail end of a discussion about something else entirely. _Doing a favor for a friend and adding an asset to the firm _is the mantra he's been repeating over and over in his head all morning. It has the added benefit of being true. Whatever's underneath he doesn't care to analyze.

"So I had a thought about the junior associates," Will begins casually.

Half his brain is instructing him to chill, and the other half is sounding alarm bells because apparently he wants this so much that he has to. _Don't be such a tool_, he tells himself - he's a partner, and if he wants to make something happen, then _make it happen_. And getting Diane on board is the first step.

"Really?" Diane shuffles some papers into a pile. "I thought we'd decided on the kid from Harvard, the one who worked for the Innocence Project."

"Yeah, I know. Impressive resume. What was his name? Cam?"

"Cary. Cary Agos."

"Right. No, I mean the other one."

"Isn't Julius taking care of that? I think they finished the interviews yesterday. They're thinking about a woman from Stanford, Amy Jackson. Julius loves her. I was looking at her file this morning. She's got top-notch qualifications."

"I've got another candidate. It's sort of...a unique situation."

Diane narrows her eyes at him. "So help me God, Will, if it's the niece of one of your basketball buddies..."

He lets out a weak laugh. "No, no, nothing like that. What would you say if I told you we could hire someone who graduated top five percent at Georgetown, had two years in Litigation at a top Chicago firm and has a definite 'in'-"

She interrupts him. "I'd ask why they're going for this if they've got two years somewhere else." But she looks at him and apparently finds something in his expression, because she sighs and asks, "What firm?"

"Crozier Abrams and Abbot."

Diane frowns a bit, impressed in spite of herself. "You mean Abrams and Associates," she says slowly. "Crozier is dead - Abbot got bought out years ago. You really have got to read those Bar Association newsletters, Will. Or at least have your assistant summarize them for you."

"No, I mean Crozier Abrams and Abbot."

"I don't understand."

Will takes a breath. "Do you know Alicia Florrick?"

"Do I-You mean Peter Florrick's wife? I-not really, I've seen her at fundraisers. On TV, obviously. Why?"

"She's looking for a job. Her husband's got legal bills, you know. I hear those can be astronomical."

Diane appears, to put it mildly, taken aback. "So someone will find her a filler position at the head of some charity board. I don't really see what this has to do with us." She pauses, and takes a long, slow look at Will. "I assume you're about to tell me what it has to do with us?"

"She's a lawyer," Will responds simply.

Diane's eyebrows shoot up. "Is she really?"

Will can read her thoughts exactly: at first, the twinge of guilt for her "charity board" comment, followed by mounting outrage at the non-mention of Mrs. Florrick's law degree in the oversaturated media coverage of her husband's scandal.

He chooses not to comment on this, to let feminism work its magic, and methodically pursues his point. "Yes. And I think she could be a real asset here."

"Wait a second." She holds a hand up. "Back up. How do you know?"

"How do I know...?"

"That Mrs. Florrick's looking for a job? Is she sniffing around other firms? One of our competitors? Her husband has a lot of connections over at Schaefer and Schaefer...at least, he used to..."

"I..." Will hedges for a moment. He's gone back and forth on how exactly he should play this. "We met for coffee a few days ago. She told me her situation, and asked if I knew of any openings, people she should talk to."

Diane's eyes widen. "You met Alicia Florrick for coffee?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think I knew that you were that well acquainted with the Florricks," she says warily.

"I'm not, really. But Alicia was a classmate of mine in law school. She was Alicia Cavanaugh then."

"In law school," Diane repeats, realization dawning. "Georgetown. Graduated top five percent at Georgetown." She shakes her head. "I'm sure I never knew that Peter Florrick's wife was a lawyer. Two years in Litigation? At Crozier Abrams and Abbot, you said? Really?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"I guess it's been...about 13 years ago, so...1996? '95?"

"She stopped practicing after two years?"

"Obviously you know better than I do what it's like for women," Will says, hoping he sounds genuine and not like he's bullshitting. "After her second kid was born she didn't go back. And then there was her husband's career."

"Right," says Diane. "Peter Florrick's political career. At its Illinois apex, in a detention facility." She shakes her head. "So her husband's off to prison, and Alicia Florrick's the family breadwinner. And she's a lawyer."

"Yeah."

"Why doesn't she just go back to Abrams and Associates?"

"I'm sure we're not the only firm in the running," Will says, isn't really a lie because he knows Alicia's savvy enough to have put several feelers out. He suspects, though, that she won't have a lot of luck, for a variety of reasons he's sure Diane is about to enumerate. "Like you said," he continues, "there's Abrams, there's Schaefer and Schaefer. But we've got a shot, and I really think it opens up some interesting possibilities."

"So this is your thought about the other junior associate position. Alicia Florrick."

"Yeah." The silence stretches out for a few beats, and finally Will can't help himself. "What do you think?"

"What do I think?" Diane repeats. She tilts her head against the back of the chair. "For heaven's sake, Will, until five minutes ago none of this was even remotely on my radar. How on earth is it that this never came up before?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that when Peter Florrick was State's Attorney, you never thought it might be helpful that...?"

"That his wife and I were in the same year in law school?" Will breaks in. He shrugs. "Not really. I don't know Peter particularly well. I mean, sometimes he played basketball, but... He went to Yale. Both bulldogs, true, though one is far superior."

"What on-"

"The mascots," he supplies helpfully. "Yale Bulldogs, Georgetown Hoyas... I will admit that no one really knows what a Hoya is, but the actual mascot is a..."

"Okay," Diane says suddenly. She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them. "You're right. This is interesting. Let's talk about this."

Will lets out a breath. He realizes then that at some point during the conversation he must have stood up, because he's now leaning against the window frame.

Diane motions someone to step inside. While she signs some papers he reseats himself. _A favor for a friend, an asset to the firm, don't be a tool_.

He waits until they're alone again to continue. "I think it opens up a lot of interesting possibilities," he repeats.

"Like what?" Diane is blunt. She's clearly going to take some convincing.

"I mean...where to start? She's a local celebrity. A known name, a known face. A universally sympathetic figure. You don't think that will play well with prospective clients? With juries? With judges, even?"

"I don't know if I would say _universally _sympathetic. Aren't some of the media portrayals of her a bit-"

Will interrupts. "Yeah, but you know what sort of crap that is," he says. "Misogynists. Republicans. Et cetera. Most of us Chicagoans love strong women."

Diane laughs, as he'd known she would. "But then there's her husband. Talk about a lightning rod. Do we really want to go there? Associate ourselves with the Florrick mess? There's been a huge public backlash, friends are cutting them, people feel betrayed..."

"Exactly." Will latches onto the last part eagerly. "They feel betrayed. Just like his wife. Don't you see how this is a win-win? By hiring her we get an in with the connections Peter Florrick still has, since she's standing by him, _and _appeal to people who feel like he betrayed her, and them. Taken together, that's, well, everyone. Who doesn't want to please everyone?"

"I don't know about 'everyone,'" Diane says. "What about the State's Attorney's office? Won't it be like a slap in the face, for us to hire the wife of the former officeholder? Childs' nemesis?"

"So?"

"'_So?_' Really? That's your response?"

"Well, yes." And he's standing again. "So we do something to needle Glen Childs. Good. The more they're focused on being pissed off about our _junior associates _and the less on other things the better. Plus, don't you think they'll constantly be wondering if Peter's feeding us stuff?"

"But he can't, that's-"

"Of course I know that, and Alicia would never do it. But as long as they're wondering..." He gives up on the idea of sitting back down and perches himself against the window.

Diane is shaking her head. "I don't know. Say she does know things? That could get us into a very murky ethical situation. Plus, Peter Florrick is going to move forward with an appeal, isn't he? What if she has to testify? The first trial went by lickety-split, but the appeal won't. If you were Peter Florrick's lawyer, wouldn't you get testimony from his wife? Especially since she's, as you say, 'a universally sympathetic figure?'"

"I'm sure her husband wouldn't let that happen," Will says quickly. "He's got to play himself up as a family man if he wants to rehabilitate his image. The public won't like him letting her go under fire like that." But he doesn't sound convincing, even to himself. Probably because he knows Peter, and doesn't believe it.

Diane isn't buying it either. "Peter Florrick wants to get out of prison," she returns. "Presumably his wife wants him out as well. She'll testify."

"So she'll testify. She's a lawyer - she knows how to be a witness. I don't understand what the problem is."

"Oh, _wake up_, Will. What if she knows something? What if she tries to cover something up? All of that cheating, those phone calls to her house, the money from the payoffs - some of it had to trickle in. You're telling me she had no idea?"

"Wait - are you seriously - that's ridiculous, of course she had no idea!" Will sputters. "Why on earth would you suspect that's even a possibility?"

"Did she tell you otherwise?"

"Well, no, that's not exactly something that you-besides, she didn't have to." Will attempts to school his expression. "Those are some pretty big what ifs, Diane," he finally says, more calmly. "If this is a non-starter, tell me. I just thought it presented the firm with an opportunity you don't usually get with a junior associate position."

Unexpectedly, Diane nods. "You're right," she says. "I was playing devil's advocate, but I think you're right. Alicia Florrick could be an asset. Her public image, while not exactly a win-win, definitely presents us with more positives than negatives. But..."

"But?"

"But that's not my main concern."

"It isn't?" Will asks, genuinely surprised. He almost feels like a law student again, one who'd studied for the wrong pop quiz.

"Fifteen years is a long time, Will. The law is a whole different animal. Privacy issues, the internet. This Amy Jackson did two summers at a Silicon Valley firm. Think what she could bring to the table."

"Oh, come on." Will can't believe it. "Kids who did theses on the right to privacy are a dime a dozen. We could get another one next week. This is Chicago, not L.A.. Here it's about who you know and what you know and how good you are at using it."

"Don't you think that's a little short-sighted?" Diane asks. "The world has changed since she was last in the game, Will. It's not just the tech stuff, it's..." she waves a hand.

"I think a good lawyer is a good lawyer."

"At the partners meeting just last month you were talking about how we need to diversify and modernize our client base," she reminds him.

"And this is me doing that. I think Alicia Florrick could help us do that." He's having a hard time keeping the frustration, the desperation out of his voice. Alicia had never asked him for _anything_, never asked anyone else for anything, and now she's going through this-this horror by herself, and he can't even do this one little thing for her.

Diane goes on. "Plus, we really need these junior associates to be workhorses on billable hours. Can she do that, after 15 years of staying at home? Didn't you say she has two kids?"

Will considers mentioning that not hiring someone because they have children is the kind of discrimination Diane fights against every day, but doesn't, because he knows what she's saying and under any other circumstances would probably agree with her.

"She knows what it takes, Diane. She's already done this before, after all. And I know for a fact that those two years she was at Crozier Abrams and Abbot she had the most billable hours of anyone there."

But she brushes this off. "I'm sure she understands the demands of the job, given her experience, and her husband's, but I have to ask - she's sure she really wants to practice law again?" Diane doesn't give him a chance to respond. "I just - I don't know, Will, I'm not sure that what Alicia Florrick brings to the table outweighs the drawbacks. Maybe if it were a few months from now...the timing just isn't quite there."

Will frowns. The bubble that's been buoying him through the few days is about to burst, and he suddenly feels like he's losing something incalculably precious. Again.

"Listen, Diane," he begins. "The law is Alicia's career. Or it was. It's what she's trained to do. Sure, she's been offered some of those charity board gigs like you said, but she's no idiot, she knows Peter's political fortunes are in flux. She doesn't want a job that depends on who ratted out who yesterday. Or one that's some puffed up lot of nothing. Alicia wants to _work_. She wants to do _this_. She wouldn't have gone to law school if she didn't. And she's good at it. I can vouch for that, and if you call Harrison Abbot out in Palm Beach he could too, he's the one who hired her back then. She has a gift for understanding people - they relate to her. She's always had that, and now that people have seen her on TV, now that they've seen what she's gone through, it'll be even more so. It'll win us cases, I'm sure of it."

He pauses, to take a breath, and realizes that Diane is looking at him slightly aghast, as though she almost doesn't recognize him. He should probably dial it back a notch.

"All I'm asking is that we hold off on hiring anyone until we bring her in for an interview," Will says, more lightly. "I know the committee will ultimately make the decision, and if they decide to go in a different direction, no harm, no foul."

Diane purses her lips. "All right, why not?" she says finally, and he feels like the world can probably hear his heart beating in his chest. "We'll have Julius bring her in before the end of the week. I wouldn't get her hopes up too much, though..."

Diane trails off, but she looks at him and Will understands what she's thinking. How unusual it is for him to go to bat for someone like that.

"Great," he says, gazing out the window so she can't see the relief and whatever else in his face. "I would've taken it to Julius myself, but I thought, given the circumstances, I should, you know, consult." Will turns back to smile at her as he heads toward the door. He leaves her still wearing a quizzical expression.

He'd thought about just going ahead and adding Alicia's name to the interview list yesterday, but had decided she had a better shot if he got Diane on board. Given the depth of her concerns, though, Diane's support in the event of a committee vote is now appearing unlikely. He can't imagine that Alicia won't wow them at her interview, but he's going to have to be prepared to do some politicking.

First, though, he has an email to write. Will settles down on his couch and opens his laptop, stares at it for a second, then closes it again, grabs his phone and selects Alicia's name before he can overthink it.

She answers on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Hey," he says without thinking, then hits his head softly against the top of his phone twice. Idiot. He starts again. "Hi, Alicia, this is Will...Gardner."

"Will, hi," she says, but there's some banging in the background and she sounds more than a little distracted.

"Is this a bad time? Should I call you back?"

"Oh, no," she responds quickly. "No, it's good. Here, just give me a minute." She presumably covers the phone's speaker with her hand, but he can still hear as she yells, "Zach, I swear, you don't want me to be the one to pack up these CDs, because if I do they're headed straight to the library sale!"

The banging has lessened noticeably as she returns. "Sorry about that. We're showing our house tomorrow and we're having some last-minute work done. The realtor told us to pack most of our personal items, make the house more of a blank canvas for the buyers."

"Yeah, I remember from when I sold the condo in Baltimore." Not that Will had had to do much packing up then. Circumstances had already dictated the sale of more than half of his furniture. Better not to think about that.

A pause is beginning to rear its awkward head when both attempt to fill it at once.

"So, listen, I-" "I just wanted to thank you for-"

Will stops himself first. "Go ahead."

"No, it's - you can go."

"Please-" "What were you going to-"

Finally Will has to laugh. "If only more lawyers were this eager to listen to each other talk."

Alicia laughs a bit too. "I was just going to thank you again for meeting me the other day."

"You don't have to thank me," he replies immediately. "It was good to see you."

"No, I - I hope I didn't sound - I've been out of the job market awhile. Please don't - I hope you know I'm not expecting a panacea. At all. I know this will be a long process, especially since we're in a recession, and-"

"Alicia, stop," he breaks in. "We've got an opening in Litigation for a junior associate. I didn't want to say anything until I'd checked that we hadn't already hired someone. Have you got your portfolio together? We can bring you in for an interview as early as the end of the week."

"What - Will - an opening at your firm?"

"Stern Lockhart Gardner," Will replies. A thought occurs to him, and he quickly begins to add, "You certainly don't have to-"

But she interrupts him. "Really? Are you serious? That's - that's amazing. Whatever I need to do." Her voice is almost buoyant, excited, in the way that he remembers. "_Thank you_, for the opportunity. I didn't mean for you to-"

"I didn't do anything. Truly. Some people jumped ship, some others got promoted, and we need more junior associates. That's all it is."

"No, I know. But still. To me it's a lot."

Will swallows. Or tries to. There's a note in her tone that's somehow making it difficult. "It's an interview," he says, more seriously. "I have to warn you - what you said about the recession is playing out in a big way. The competition is tough. There are a lot of well-qualified people out there."

"Of course," she responds. "Just going in for an interview will be good for me, help me get my feet wet."

Then Will can't stand himself for throwing water on that brief, buoyant spark, and adds, against his better judgment, "And you're one of them. You know that, right?"

"Thanks."

He can sense her skepticism though the phone. "I'm serious. What's that one song you used to play at Georgetown, whenever one of us flubbed an oral exam?"

This time when Alicia laughs, it's the real, Alicia laugh. He can feel himself smiling along with it. "Oh my God, I can't believe you remember that. _Shining Star_? God, what a horrible song."

"No, it was great. Come on. Earth, Wind & Fire? That's some classic stuff."

"Weren't some of the lyrics really weird?" She goes on before he has a chance to answer. "Oh, no, now it's in my head. Thanks for that. Now I'm going to have to play some of Zach's awful music to get it out."

This time the pause is more companionable than awkward. The realization of how easily he could get used to this again nips at the corner of his mind, but Will pushes it back. "So one of the assistants will give you a call to set everything up, tell you what you need to submit," he says a bit abruptly.

"Right, sure. That's great."

"Is this a good number, for them to contact you? And the email address...?"

"Yes. Both are good. Either one. Grace has been good about letting me use her computer. Zach, not so much. I should really think about getting one of my own, shouldn't I?"

"Sure," Will replies distractedly. "Listen, Alicia..." He wants to give her advice about how to play the interview, to tell her to play up her connections, to play down the 13 years at home, to play the family law angle with her kids, to pick a writing sample that might play on the various biases of the hiring committee..

"Yeah?"

But then he remembers one of the things he likes most about her. Alicia doesn't "play," not like that - she _works_.

"I know you'll do great at the interview," he says instead. "Just...be yourself. Remember how much Harry Abbot liked you."

"That was 15 years ago."

"Fifteen years is nothing," Will responds. He would know.

"Thanks. Really, Will, thank you."

"Hey, I didn't do anything. I'm just the conduit. This is all you."

"Still."

"If there's ever anything I can actually do, though..." he trails off for a moment. "You know where to find me."

"I do. Thanks."

He wishes she would stop thanking him. Especially since her chances at the job are so...

He can hear a voice pipe up in the background - "Mom, there aren't any more boxes!" - and says, "I better let you go. If you don't hear from our office by the end of the day tomorrow give me a call."

"Sure. Yes. I'll let you know."

("Mom, Grace did these wrong! How stupid do you have to be to mess up taping something together?" "I'm not stupid! These flaps are weird, they're not like the other boxes.")

"Okay...bye, Alicia."

"Bye."

Will closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the wall. Shit. Shit shit shit shit. Now he's going to have to make this happen.

* * *

A/N: In its original incarnation, this chapter was the vignette that gave rise to the entire story. Thanks again for all the lovely reviews!


	13. Chapter 13

13.

When dealing with David Lee, Will knows from long experience, it always works best to couch things in terms of self-interest.

Fortunately it's a language Will speaks well - better than Diane, in fact, whose double lodestones of "Liberalism" and "Feminism" always seem to prevent her from achieving the necessary amour-propre. And, fortunately, better than Julius, whose typical strategy of embracing the role of the aggrieved party is far less effective in the boardroom than the courtroom.

David Lee is the swing vote. Alicia's interview (and, to be fair, her name recognition) put half the hiring committee in her corner. The other half remain proponents, along with Julius, of Amy Jackson.

And David Lee? David Lee is a proponent of David Lee.

So Will is in David Lee's office, explaining how hiring Alicia would benefit Lee's Family Law fiefdom. He's doing a pretty bang-up job of making the case but can tell by the volume of emails David appears to be punching into his Blackberry that it's not really resonating. Probably because Julius has been here already this morning, spouting some of the same lines.

But Will is better at this than Julius.

"What's it to you, anyway?" David finally asks him. He sounds supremely bored, and looks it, too. "Aren't the junior associates a little below your pay grade? I say we let Julius have this one, maybe it gets him to shut up about that minority mentoring bullshit."

Will considers how to frame his answer. "Alicia went to law school with me. You know how it is. Diane's got her people, Jonas has his, I've got mine."

David sets down his phone. At last, a spark of interest. "And I have my people."

"You do," Will agrees.

This produces a raised eyebrow.

"We did just hire in Family Law at the beginning of the fiscal year," Will points out. "I'd say your people are relatively plentiful."

"Would you say that?"

"I would." Will's not about to be pushed around. Best to play the waiting game. There must be something else David wants, because after the last budget meeting he has to know more new hires would be a nonstarter. There's always something else.

Will lets the silence drag on for a few beats, then casts about for something to say, something neutral, inane. "It's hard to believe one of my law school contemporaries is going to be a first-year," is what he finally comes up with. "Feels like such a long time ago, doesn't it? Never thought I'd be nostalgic about those days, madly racking up the billable hours on no sleep..."

David Lee smiles, also waits a few beats, then says, "You know, I was just talking about those days myself."

"Is that right?"

"With my niece Caitlin. My sister's daughter. Only trying not to scare her too much, of course, about the hours. She's just starting her second year at the University of Chicago."

There it is. Inward fist pump. Will feels like he should hate this sort of thing more than he does.

"Down in Hyde Park, you said? That's a great program over there. I play basketball with A. J. Wright over at Schaefer & Schaefer, he raves about it." (Only once had he ever mentioned it - when bragging about an alumni reception with the Obamas.)

"She's a bright girl."

"Well I hope you can persuade her to visit you up here in the Loop once she passes the bar," Will says. "I'd love to meet her."

David's eyes level with his. "I'll remember that."

Another silence.

Will resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Of course you know we're always looking for bright people here," he says. Okay, now he hates it more.

"Of course."

David smirks a bit. Will blinks at him.

Finally, David does roll his eyes. (And that, in a nutshell, is why Will is a name partner, and David's not.) "And I'm sure Alicia Florrick will be a great asset to the firm," David says, parroting the mantra Will had repeated before the hiring committee.

"I'm sure she will," he returns, pushing himself up from the deeply cushioned chair. How did David Lee manage to get all the comfortable furniture in his office?

Well, hopefully the niece doesn't turn out to be a dud. Maybe she'll drop out, anyway - a lot of 2Ls do, once shit gets real after the midterm. But Caitlin isn't his concern at the moment, and now, neither is Amy Jackson.

Because now, Alicia Florrick is about to be the newest junior associate. At Stern Lockhart _Gardner_.

* * *

A/N: No other updates this week, but stay tuned for the final two chapters next week. Thanks for reading!


	14. Chapter 14

14.

"You hired Peter Florrick's wife? As a junior associate?"

Somehow Kalinda is standing _right there _when the elevator doors open. Technically they haven't announced the new hires to the general staff yet, but so many people were involved in the process that he doesn't bother asking her how she knows.

"Yup. And some kid right out of Harvard."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asks

Will walks purposefully through the bullpen. "Well, I know Harvard grads can sometimes be tools, Kalinda, but you should really give the guy a chance."

Kalinda does her little pause thing that functions as an eyeroll. "So did she get the job because she's Peter Florrick's wife, or because you went to law school with her?"

Will stops and faces her. He knows he doesn't have to answer to Kalinda but he's defended this decision so many times over the past week that he's almost on autopilot. "We hired Alicia because she's smart, qualified, and will be an asset to the firm."

"Aha."

Apparently he's supposed to ask 'What do you mean, _aha_?', so he doesn't and instead starts walking again.

She trails after him. "I'm just saying, that's what people are going to think."

"So let them. People can think what they want. People thought all sorts of things when I made partner. Said them, too."

Kalinda's default tone is skeptical, so for this, she ratchets it up a notch. "Did they? That you were too white, too male, too well-educated, too...?"

"Too young, too inexperienced, too lacking in knowledge of the 'right people,'" Will finishes, rounding the corner into a meeting room. _The _meeting room, where his early meeting started five minutes ago.

It's empty.

"What the hell?"

"Your meeting got moved upstairs to the conference room," Kalinda says helpfully.

"What is that, like the third time this week?" Will grumbles. Leaning against the doorframe, he lifts his eyes to meet Kalinda's. "Okay, what is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You followed me here, armed with full knowledge that I was headed to a meeting in an empty room. What is it?"

"I don't question your prerogative to go to whatever room you-"

"_K_."

She looks at him, bites her lip, and he can tell she's on the point of saying something when one of the assistants appears. "I'm sorry, Mr. Gardner, I was just informed your meeting will be up in conference room B."

"Yes, thank you, I'll be right there," Will says, and waves her away, but Kalinda's expression has closed off again and he knows it's too late for whatever it was.

* * *

A couple days later, Kalinda's in his office, talking about something else entirely, when suddenly he asks, "Could you do me a favor?"

She flips open a pad and starts to click her pen, but Will shakes his head.

"What is it?"

Will grabs his baseball, starts shifting it from one hand to the other. "The junior associates start next week."

"Do you want me to haze them?"

Will smiles. "I'm not sure I want to know what exactly a Kalinda Sharma hazing entails."

"Just tequila." A beat. "Or your baseball bat." Another beat. "Maybe both." She shrugs.

"My first year in college I had to iron the seniors' boxers for a month," Will recalls. "Briefs, too." He shudders.

Kalinda's look is blank, and he briefly reflects, as one does occasionally, that it's possible she comes from a different planet.

"For baseball," he clarifies, holding up the ball. "It was pretty lame. But I am seriously amazing at ironing now, though."

"I don't iron," Kalinda says, glancing down at her leather skirt, "so if that's the favor..."

"When I was a captain," Will continues, ignoring this, "we made the freshmen do monologues from _Bull Durham _on command. On the team bus, at parties, when they were on the phone with their girlfriends. Sometimes we'd walk by their lecture halls and stand outside the door and they'd have to stand up and do it in the middle of class. It was great."

"Who's Bill Durham?" she asks. Will's relatively sure she knows most of this stuff and just defaults to the mode of pissing people off so she doesn't have to care.

"So, the junior associates," Will begins again.

"You know, I think Cary actually started yesterday," Kalinda interjects. Their eyes lock. They both know he's not talking about Cary.

So he gives up on the generalities (why he ever bothers with them anyway, with Kalinda, he's not really sure - habit, probably) and gets to the point.

"So, Alicia starts next week," he says, alternating grips on the baseball - fastball, curveball, slider, change-up...fastball, curveball, slider, change-up - "and I was wondering is if you'd help her a bit, with getting acclimated and everything. When you're working on the first case, I think it'll be the pro bono, if you could just-"

"No."

"The Harvard kid will be fine, there are plenty of other first-years the same age and they'll all bond, just like every year. But it's not like she's 25 anymore and-"

"How old do you imagine I am, exactly?" Kalinda interrupts.

He supposes he's always thought of her as relatively ageless, or rather as a force somewhat beyond the mundanity of time, but he's not in the mood to ponder such profundities, so he continues, "I'm guessing she'll feel out of place and not really used to the pace of it and it'd be nice if someone-"

"No."

"-sort of showed her the lay of the land."

"No."

"Of course I can't really...you know, because I'm..." he trails off, the baseball freezing awkwardly between his third and fourth fingers.

_Because I'm going to be her boss_, he realizes, and it hits him, then. It hits him that he's going to be giving Alicia, who let him argue the best parts of their moot court exercise, a ton of shitty cases; it hits him that he's going to be taking Alicia, who caught him up on like four Torts lectures when he had to go home for his grandfather's funeral, away from her family at all hours; it hits him that after six months he's maybe going to have to tell Alicia, who he kissed at a bar after their Criminal Procedure final and who he then went home and broke up with Helena for, that she's fired.

"No."

Kalinda snaps back into focus.

"What?"

"I can't, Will," she says, and if he were more observant he'd notice it's almost as though her armor has a chink in it. "I am the last person you want for this."

"Why's that?"

She stares at him. Her expression is even more guarded than usual, like she thinks she's said too much. This time he does notice.

"Why the last person?" he asks again, this time more curious.

When Kalinda speaks next it's with that fake cheerful tone she uses sometimes, typically when she's manipulating information from someone. "Have you met me?" she asks. "I'm not the girl the teacher asks to show the new kid around school."

Will lets himself be deflected. "Oh, but I bet you know all the places on the playground to smoke pot," he returns.

Her lips curl up at this. "I can't." There's finality in it.

"Okay, no big deal," Will says, and he starts rotating the baseball again. Fastball, curveball, slider, change-up. Fastball, curveball, slider, change-up...

He grabs a file from his desk and switches gears. "Has Julius caught you up to speed on that assault case? By the barber shop? The SA's office is trying to push it through and that makes me think there's got to be some security cam footage that we're missing."

Kalinda doesn't respond - she's staring at the baseball. Fastball, curveball, slider, change-up...

"Kalinda?"

"Did you hire her because she's Peter Florrick's wife, or because you went to law school with her?" she asks suddenly. Asks _again _suddenly.

Will sets the baseball carefully down on his desk. They both watch it roll slowly before coming to rest against a paperweight. He wonders if she knows what she's asking.

"Because she went to law school with me," he responds at last.

"Okay," she says.

Silence.

"So did he show you the pictures of the alley?" Will asks, returning to the case. "With the way it's configured-"

"No, I mean, okay, I'll do it."

Will blinks. "Be the girl who shows the new kid around school?"

"The one who shows her where to smoke pot." She smiles at him, and he's pretty sure there are a ton of levels at which they don't, and can't, understand each other but there's at least one at which they do, and he tries to find the words to thank her but she's flipping her pad and clicking her pen again and he's picking up the baseball again (fastball, curveball, slider...) and they're discussing the barber shop assault like it's the only thing they've been talking about.

"One more thing," he says suddenly, later, when Kalinda gets up to leave, and she pauses in the doorway.

"What's that?"

"She likes tequila."

Kalinda's eyes level with his. "Is that right?"

"Doesn't everyone?" Will shrugs. Fastball, curveball, slider, change-up. Fastball, curveball, slider, change-up.

She lingers a moment longer in the doorway. "Peter Florrick doesn't."

Knuckleball.

* * *

A/N: I'm still putting the finishing touches on the final chapter, so it may be a few days extra. Thank you for continuing to follow this story.


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